- French carrier group moves south of Suez ahead of conditional UK-French Hormuz mission
Source: ABC News
“France’s aircraft carrier strike group is moving south of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in preparation for a potential future mission as part of a French-British plan for the Strait of Hormuz, the French armed forces said Wednesday. The southward repositioning of the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle and its escorts is the latest stage of a Middle East deployment first announced by French President Emmanuel Macron in a televised address on March 3, the day before Iran closed the strait. The move south of Suez puts France’s only carrier closer to the Persian Gulf chokepoint where a fifth of the world’s oil normally transits and where Iran has effectively halted commercial traffic since early March.” (05/06/26)
- SCOTUS Declines to Pause Order Holding Apple in Contempt in Epic Games Lawsuit
Source: US News & World Report
“The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Wednesday Apple’s request to temporarily block a judicial order that found the iPhone maker in violation of sweeping court-mandated changes to its lucrative App Store as part of an antitrust lawsuit by ‘Fortnite’ maker Epic Games. Justice Elena Kagan, on behalf of the court, declined to pause a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that deemed Apple in contempt in the Epic lawsuit contesting App Store fees. Apple had sought the delay to give it time to file a full Supreme Court appeal of the 9th Circuit decision. Apple and Epic have clashed for years over the rules governing Apple’s App Store. The contempt ruling and the scope of Apple’s court-ordered obligations are the latest issues in the dispute to reach the Supreme Court.” (05/06/26)
- Massive Alaska megatsunami was second largest ever recorded
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A massive ‘megatsunami’ wave created when part of an Alaskan mountain crumbled into the sea is the second tallest ever recorded – and a reminder of the risks posed by melting glaciers, say scientists. Last summer a giant wave swept through a remote fjord in southeast Alaska leaving destruction in its wake. The event went largely unreported at the time, but a new scientific analysis shows it was caused by a massive landslide. An incredible 64 million cubic metres of rock – the equivalent of 24 Great Pyramids – splashed into the water below. The sheer power of that amount of rock plunging into the fjord in under a minute created a gigantic wave almost 500 metres tall. Only the time it happened – in the early hours of the morning – prevented tourist cruise ships being caught up in the devastation, say the researchers.” (05/06/26)
- TX: Homeowner shoots, kills suspected burglar
Source: Click 2 Houston
“A man is dead after investigators say a homeowner woke up to find him inside a house early Wednesday morning, leading to a confrontation that ended in a shooting. According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, deputies with Precinct 4 responded around 5:45 a.m. to a home in the 16900 block of Spring Creek Oaks. When they arrived, they found an unidentified man on a walking trail behind the home. Investigators say he had been shot and was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities say the homeowner told deputies he woke up and discovered a man inside his house wearing a mask and gloves. Investigators say the two got into a physical fight inside the home that moved outside. At some point, the homeowner went back inside, but officials say the suspect returned to the property, leading to a second confrontation in the backyard.” (05/06/26)
- VA: FBI raids Spanberger ally office as federal corruption probe targets cannabis business
Source: Fox News
“The FBI has raided the office of a powerful Virginia Democratic lawmaker and ally of Gov. Abigail Spanberger as part of a federal corruption and illegal marijuana sale probe, Fox News has learned. Longtime state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a major power broker in Virginia politics who stumped for Spanberger on the campaign trail in 2025, is now at the center of a major FBI corruption probe, according to federal law enforcement sources. Agents executed court-authorized criminal search warrants at Lucas’ office in Portsmouth, Virginia, Wednesday, according to federal law enforcement sources. The FBI simultaneously carried out a SWAT-team search of a nearby cannabis dispensary co-owned by Lucas. At least three people were detained during the raids. The state senator arrived at her office as the raids were being conducted. She told Fox News that she had no idea what the FBI agents were doing at her office.” (05/06/26)
- Ted Turner, 1938-2026
Source: Variety
“Ted Turner, the charismatic, larger-than-life figure who conquered the world of media, sports and philanthropy, has died, according to a release by Turner Enterprises obtained by CNN. He was 87. Turner disclosed in September 2018 that he was suffering from Lewy body dementia, a brain disorder that affects memory and other cognitive functions. Turner, Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1991, transformed the world of television, inventing 24-hour news with CNN and pioneering national basic cable. To feed his ‘superstation,’ he made deals that rewrote the rules of sports broadcasting. He was also a sports figure himself, winning the America’s Cup and owning the Atlanta Braves when they won the World Series.” (05/06/26)
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/ted-turner-dead-tv-mogul-philanthropist-1236739318/
- Germany: Police raid neo-Nazi criminal youth groups
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Police have raided around 50 homes and other locations, targeting people suspected of involvement in far-right criminal youth groups that have recently emerged in Germany. Prosecutors said the suspects were believed to be part of two groups, ‘Jung & Stark’ (JS), or Young and Strong, and ‘Deutsche Jugend Voran’ (DJV), which means Forwards German Youth. No arrests were made in Wednesday’s raids, which took place in 12 states, mainly in the east and south of Germany, including Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony. In a statement, federal prosecutors said the raids targeted individuals suspected of organising violence through social media and forming nationwide networks. ‘Some of the accused are said to have attacked members of the left-wing scene or people they believed to be paedophiles. In each case, the victims were beaten by several attackers and sustained significant injuries,’ prosecutors said.” (05/06/26)
- 600-person search continues for missing US soldiers off Morocco’s coast
Source: SFGate
“Over 600 military personnel from multiple countries are searching for two U.S. soldiers who went missing in Morocco during U.S.-African military exercises, scouring underwater caves and the Atlantic coast, authorities said Wednesday. As the search entered its fifth day, the African Lion military drills neared their end. The two U.S. Army members went missing last week near the Cap Draa training area outside Tan-Tan, a coastal city in southwestern Morocco, the Moroccan military said. They are believed to have been on a recreational hike and may have fallen into the ocean. More than 600 personnel from the U.S., Morocco and other African Lion participants are involved in the search and have covered more than 45 square kilometers of coastal and open ocean area, a U.S. defense official told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly on the matter.” (05/06/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/a-600-person-search-continues-for-missing-us-22245022.php
- Venezuelan regime tells UN court that mineral-rich part of Guyana was “fraudulently” taken in colonial era
Source: Seattle Times
“Venezuela insisted Wednesday that a disputed mineral-rich region of Guyana was ‘fraudulently’ taken in a 19th-century example of colonialism, arguing that a 1966 agreement and not the United Nations’ highest court should finalize ownership of the territory. The International Court of Justice is holding a week of hearings between the South American neighbors who both lay claim to the Essequibo region, which is rich in gold, diamonds, timber and other natural resources and is located close to massive offshore oil deposits. An 1899 decision by arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the United States drew the border along the Essequibo River largely in favor of Guyana. The U.S. represented Venezuela in part because the Venezuelan government had broken off diplomatic relations with Britain. Venezuela contends the Americans and Europeans conspired to cheat the country out of its rightfully owned land.” [editor’s note: States, as criminal gangs, don’t and can’t own anything. Everything they control is stolen – TLK] (05/06/26)
- DC: Man charged in shooting was reportedly walking along path of Vance’s motorcade
Source: SFGate
“A man accused of firing a gun at law enforcement officers near the Washington Monument this week was walking along the path of Vice President JD Vance’s motorcade before the shooting and made a vulgar remark about the White House after the confrontation, according to a court filing Wednesday. Michael Marx, 45, of Midland, Texas, was shot multiple times during Monday’s confrontation and was in the back of an ambulance on his way to a hospital when he said, ‘F**k the White House!’ and ‘Kill me, kill me, kill me!’ as a Secret Service agent said in an affidavit. The sworn statement does not specify whether investigators believe Marx had a particular target.” (05/06/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/shooting-suspect-made-vulgar-remark-about-white-22244732.php
- Uganda: Lawmakers Pass Scaled-Back Sovereignty Law After Central Bank Warning
Source: US News & World Report
“Uganda’s parliament passed legislation to curb alleged foreign influence after scaling back proposed restrictions on funding from abroad that the central bank governor said risked ‘economic disaster.’ The proposal, entitled ‘The Protection of Sovereignty Bill,’ was adopted late on Tuesday and now awaits the signature of President Yoweri Museveni. Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, and allies in the ruling party regularly decry outside influence in Uganda, accusing domestic political rivals of receiving funding from abroad and pushing foreign agendas such as LGBTQ rights. Several Ugandan opposition parties have traditionally received some of their funding from outside the country.” (05/06/26)
- OH: Ramaswamy wins Republican nomination for governor
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Vivek Ramaswamy will run for the position of Ohio governor in November, after the staunch ally of US President Donald Trump emerged victorious in one of a series of primary contests held in the US Midwest. Projected results on Tuesday night showed the health-tech entrepreneur had defeated Casey Putsch to earn the Republican nomination. Ramaswamy – who gained prominence during his unsuccessful run against Trump for president in 2024 – said at a victory party that his plan was to ‘leave this state and this country better than we found it.’ Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Amy Acton, who ran unopposed for her party’s own nomination, told supporters she wanted to make Ohio more affordable again. ‘It shouldn’t be this hard,’ said Acton, who is the former Ohio public health director. ‘It is time to put working families first.'” (05/06/26)
- The Shocking Nature of Libertarianism
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance“Contrary to its misunderstanding and misrepresentation by Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and conservatives, libertarianism has nothing to do with greed, selfishness, one’s lifestyle, morality, vices, or religion. It is a political philosophy that deals with the proper role of violence in society. … The creed of libertarianism is nonaggression: freedom from aggression and violence against person and property as long as one respects the person and property of others. … Most Americans would claim to hold to the nonaggression principle on a personal level. … Yet most of these same people have no problem supporting government aggression against those who are not aggressing against the person or property of others, are participating in certain activities, or are engaging in prohibited commerce in order to effect changes in behavior, compel virtue, punish vice, or achieve some desired social end.” (05/06/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-shocking-nature-of-libertarianism/
- What “Never Again” Demands of Each of Us
Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein“What [Dr. Edith] Eger understood, and what makes her work so urgent now, is that Jew-hatred is never only about Jews. It is a symptom of a deeper moral disorder; the same disorder she spent her career treating in her patients and herself. When we dehumanize any group, we do not harm only them. We do something to ourselves. We coarsen the inner voice that Adam Smith called the impartial spectator. We silence the conscience that might otherwise call us back. The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers; it began in the minds of people who decided that some human beings do not belong to humanity. That decision is always available to us. So is the opposite one.” (05/06/26)
https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/what-never-again-demands-of-each
- The problem with independent bureaucracies running things
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall“It’s possible that modern slavery is indeed increasing. We tend to think that’s a result of the expansion of what slavery is meant to mean but perhaps that’s just us. There is though this problem of using independent bureaucracies to run all of these different things. Commissioners for this and that, commissions for the other and so on. … Say that you had a touch of the cynic in you. What would you expect a report from a bureaucracy to say about the issue that bureaucracy is meant to be dealing with? … The aim of a bureaucracy, as an organisation, is to continue to exist and to grow – to increase its budget. That’s it, that’s just what happens with this life form. Therefore every report from a bureaucracy is going to be well … yes … very difficult problem … growing all the time … give us more money.” ()5/06/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-problem-with-independent-bureaucracies-running-things
- Democrats’ fingerprints are all over the Spirit Airlines crime scene
Source: New York Post
by Rich Lowry“Regulators no longer have to worry that Spirit Airlines might upset the air-travel market by merging with the wrong competitor. The now-defunct airline made poor business decisions and had to cope with tough circumstances. But if its demise were an Agatha Christie mystery, the fingerprints of Joe Biden’s antitrust officials would be all over the crime scene. These zealots fought a proposed deal between JetBlue and Spirit, and congratulated themselves on a 2024 court victory that doomed Spirit to likely oblivion. This was wanton economic destruction masquerading as antitrust enforcement. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who never met an antitrust action she didn’t like, exemplifies the perversity.” (05/05/26)
- The real cost of the Iran War: $72 billion for the first 60 days
Source: Popular Information
by Stephen Semler“Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Acting Comptroller Jules Hurst told Congress last week that the Iran War had cost $25 billion through the first 60 days. The next day, CBS reported that officials familiar with the Pentagon’s internal assessments estimated the cost was actually closer to $50 billion — double the amount department leadership had just stated publicly. However, even the figure reported as the war’s ‘true cost’ is at least $22 billion too low. Popular Information conducted a cost estimate of the Iran War based on officials’ statements, military procurement and operations data, and reporting on deployments and armament use. Through 60 days, the US spent an estimated $71.8 billion on the Iran War, or $1.2 billion per day on average.” (05/06/26)
- The Man Behind the Tattoo
Source: The Bulwark
by Sarah Longwell“While debates rage online about the Democratic party needing to be more moderate or more progressive, Democratic primary voters are focused on a different set of priorities entirely. They want fighters who can win and seem like they care about average people struggling in this economy. It makes sense that Democratic voters are in the mood for a candidate like Platner, with his oyster-farmer aesthetic and ‘not a regular politician’ energy. But we were still left wondering how voters were processing Platner’s laundry list of personal baggage, from the much-discussed Totenkopf tattoo to the slew of bad Reddit posts. Here’s what they said …” (05/06/26)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-man-behind-the-tattoo-graham-platner-maine-democrat-focus-group
- The numbers don’t lie: The DNC is winning where it matters most
Source: The Hill
by Michael Kapp“Since Trump returned to office, Democrats have overperformed in 90 percent of competitive elections and hold a perfect 30–0 record in flipped state legislative seats. Republicans may dominate the cash-on-hand conversation in political media, but Democrats are investing resources into actual electoral gains. That disconnect underscores how fundraising comparisons are, at best, an incomplete measure of political strength. Importantly, many of these gains are happening in places national Democrats historically have ignored.” (05/06/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5864467-democratic-fundraising-media-misconception/mlite/
- Surveillance Tools Intended for Border Control Are Being Used Against Americans
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“It goes without saying that any tool or power government acquires for addressing some crisis of the moment will eventually—often, almost immediately—be deployed against the general public. So it is with border enforcement and the crackdown on immigrants. Surveillance technology ostensibly intended for the enforcement of laws regulating migration is being turned against Americans.” (05/06/26)
- Cost of California’s High-Speed Rail Goes Up Again
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kerry Jackson“It was supposed to cost $33 billion when voters approved the train in 2008. It will now cost at least $126 billion. It was also supposed to be carrying 65.5 million to 96.5 million intercity riders a year by 2030. Yet now 2040 is the date for ‘full service to start.’ Skeptics don’t believe we’ll ever see the train run with paying customers aboard.” (05/06/26)
https://fee.org/articles/cost-of-californias-high-speed-rail-goes-up-again/
- The Iraq War’s Disastrous Legacy Rears Its Head
Source: The American Conservative
by Murtaza Hussain“Over two decades after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it is difficult to understand what the precise relationship is between Baghdad and Washington. Economic, political, and cultural ties between the two countries are weak—mostly reflecting in-built structural dependence by Iraqi institutions on the U.S. financial system—while a legacy of suspicion and hostility has outlived the war. This alienated relationship will be strange to those who remember the justifications for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was depicted as another step in an unstoppable march of liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War, intended to benefit not just Iraqis but Americans themselves.” (05/06/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-iraq-wars-disastrous-legacy-rears-its-head/
- From Toleration to Religious Liberty
Source: Law & Liberty
by Tyler Mruczinski“John Adams’s evolution from mere toleration of Roman Catholicism to open support for religious liberty personifies a revolution in the American mind.” (05/06/26)
https://lawliberty.org/from-toleration-to-religious-liberty/
- The Pandemic Agreement Fails Again
Source: Brownstone Institute
by David Bell“Finalization of the much-heralded Pandemic Agreement, the flagship of the World Health Organization’s pandemic agenda, has just been postponed again after another failure to resolve disagreements. Despite heavy pressure from the WHO and European Union in yet another meeting, in Geneva, Switzerland, a large bloc of African states are refusing to sign on to what they consider a clear colonialist agenda. Which of course it is, aimed at putting Covid-era wealth transfers on a more permanent footing. The WHO, for reasons explained below, is doing what it is paid to do. Major financial sponsors of the WHO have much to gain from getting this Agreement through.” (05/06/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-pandemic-agreement-fails-again/
- Redistricting without partisanship
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“In the week since the Supreme Court barred gerrymandering of districts intentionally based on race, many state legislatures have been busy debating how to redraw electoral maps. Some lawmakers have offered non-race-based ideas – including proportional representation – to ensure all disadvantaged voters have a voice. Such ideas, however, might first entail a dialogue, both across the aisle and across races. In Alabama, one legislator, Rep. Curtis Travis, offered a different kind of dialogue Monday.'” (05/05/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0505/Redistricting-without-partisanship
- Regulators Broke the “Spirit” of Competition — Passengers Paid the Price
Source: The Daily Economy
by Stefan Bartl“Washington blocked the merger that might have saved Spirit Airlines—then stood by as it collapsed. The result: fewer flights, higher prices, and a textbook case of policy backfiring on the consumers it aimed to protect.” (05/06/26)
- MAGA Will Kill Many Americans
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman“Most Americans appear to be unaware of the fact that life expectancy in the United States is substantially lower than in other advanced countries; we’re on a par with poorer nations in Europe like Albania. Surely even fewer people know that this wasn’t always true. In the early 1980s Americans lived about as long as citizens of other rich nations. Now we die substantially earlier …” (05/06/26)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/maga-will-kill-many-americans
- Restricting Speech By Purportedly Protecting Children
Source: The Volokh Conspiracy
by Jacob Mchangama & Jeff Kosseff“While governments around the world have imposed speech restrictions to fight misinformation and hate speech, they also have attempted to curb free speech for a less controversial reason: protecting children. But many of these restrictions stem from vague, unspecified, or speculative harms and corral wide swaths of speech that do not harm children. Censoring speech in the name of protecting children is not a terribly new phenomenon, especially in authoritarian countries. In 2012, for instance, Russia’s parliament passed a law allowing the country’s media censorship agency to unilaterally blacklist websites and take them offline, without any court approval. The lawmakers’ justification was protecting children from online harm, but civil liberties groups correctly predicted that the government would use these powers to curb far more speech. In recent years, such efforts have moved beyond authoritarian countries and taken hold in Western democracies.” (05/06/26)
https://reason.com/volokh/2026/05/06/restricting-speech-by-purportedly-protecting-children/
- 14th Amendment Is 160 Years Old Today, And We Are in Serious Trouble
Source: Common Dreams
by Jeffrey C Isaac“On May 6, 1866, exactly one hundred and sixty years ago today, Thaddeus Stevens, US Congressman from Pennsylvania and the leading Radical Republican in the House of Representatives, rose to introduce the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution on the floor of the. Stevens, chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, was also co-chair of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction set up by Congress, in late 1865, to promote a radical Reconstruction, a program advanced over the consistent objections of President Andrew Johnson. … The Amendment passed in the House on June 13, by a vote of 138 in favor and 36 opposed, having passed in the Senate five days earlier, on June 8, by a vote of 33 in favor and 11 opposed. In other words, roughly a quarter of US Representatives and Senators, serving in houses of Congress that did not include representatives from the seceded Confederate states, voted against the amendment.” (05/06/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/history-of-14th-amendment
- Iran Has All the Hallmarks of a Forever War
Source: Foreign Policy
by Will Walldorf“Is the U.S.-Iran conflict becoming a forever war? At first glance, it doesn’t look that way. Rising oil and gas prices, growing congressional pressure around the War Powers Resolution, and scant public support are putting pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump to end the conflict soon. But if history is any guide, there’s a real chance the war continues to drag on. Why? Because a few core elements that have turned past conflicts into forever wars are present in this one, too. Those three components are high resolve by the weak, erosion of cost-benefit thinking by the strong, and weak institutional constraints to warfighting on at least one side. Combined, they mean resisting the expansion of the Iran conflict into a forever war won’t be easy.” (05/06/26)
- The Immigration Police-State’s Infliction of Harm
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“In the midst of massive death and destruction inflicted by the U.S. government in Iran, Venezuela, the Caribbean, and here economically in the United States — and, before that, in Iraq and Afghanistan — and, before that, in Vietnam and Korea, it is easy to forget that the U.S. government is still inflicting economic destruction here at home with its immigration police state. There are, of course, countless horror stories of human suffering that the Trump administration has inflicted on people with its ruthless and brutal immigration police state, especially with ICE and Border Patrol raids, masked kidnappings, squalid detention centers, and forced deportations.” (05/06/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/05/06/the-immigration-police-states-infliction-of-harm/
- Trump’s Self-Serving Narrative Crashes Against the Reality of War
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Ted Snider“Trump’s team is crafting a narrative that provides them with an off ramp to a war they have lost that tells the story of a war they have won. The U.S. had no legal reason for its war on Iran, and what publicly stated reasons they had were forever shifting. But there seem to have been four key goals: 1. Regime change. 2. Removing Iran’s ballistic missile program. 3. Severing Iran from its forward deterrent network, or proxies. 4. Zero enrichment of uranium. … The rest is fiction: a narrative fiction crafted by Trump’s team to give them a way to tell an angry and betrayed public that they won the war when none of the goals – and all of the nightmares — have been achieved.” (05/06/26)
- Killer Cars for Your Safety
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“‘It is in my memory banks,’ Eric Peters wrote last month, referencing an android on an old Star Trek episode, ‘the long-ago time when GM was a car company.’ Yes, in the “long-ago” they ‘made an almost infinite variety of vehicles to suit almost any need and budget, all of them designed and engineered to free their owners. Some were utilitarian. Others were beautiful. Some were arrogant. None were parenting. They were made by adults who respected other adults. What became of that GM?’ The answer? Government.” (05/06/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/05/05/killer-cars-for-your-safety/
- How the Comey Indictment Could Backfire on Republicans
Source: The Dispatch
by Jacob Gaba“The Department of Justice’s recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey has been rightly criticized as flimsy and an affront to the First Amendment. This is nothing more than a naked use of federal authority to intimidate a notable critic of President Donald Trump. It’s also something that should make conservatives uneasy. The Republican Party won’t always control the government, but by treating hostile political symbolism as a threat, the Department of Justice has opened a door that future administrations may be all too willing to walk through.” (05/06/26)
- The Cost of Apathy
Source: The Pamphleteer
by Davis Hunt“It’s official. Mayor Freddie O’Connell is running again. His decision breaks the ten-year streak of mayors who have ducked out of a second term, whether of their own volition or due to criminal negligence. ‘The next four years are about turning progress into permanence,’ O’Connell said. For decades, Nashville steeped in the cultural ferment of the country without drawing too much attention outside the Southeast. That all changed as Nashville’s explosive growth coincided with the cultural ascendancy of country music. Nashville is understood in the wider culture as a Red City. Country music, the horses out in Franklin, and lake culture all intertwine to give the area a distinctly Republican appeal – not to mention the makeup of the state government.” (05/06/26)
- Trump’s Responses to Kimmel and Comey Highlight His Contempt for Freedom of Speech
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum“The president is not shy about using government power to punish people for saying things that offend him.” (05/06/26)
- Evaluating Kentucky’s Assessment Results: Part 2, The SAT Switch
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Richard G Innes“Legislators and the Kentucky Board of Education should act to restore proper oversight, ensure compliance with state law, and preserve the ability to accurately measure student performance over time.” (05/06/26)
https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/assessment-results-part-2/
- Trump right to take troops out of Germany. Now see where they go.
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Kavanagh“US force posture in Europe needed a strategic trim, but some lawmakers want these soldiers to go closer to Russia. They should come home.” (05/06/26)
- Accounting burden in carbon tax, cap and trade, CBAM
Source: Niskanen Center
by Jia-Shen Tsai“Tax season is a useful reminder that how we organize financial information matters just as much as the numbers themselves. Taxpayers file returns, but the underlying numbers come from employers, who report wages directly to the government. Without that upstream reporting, the total simply would be error-prone. That’s true, too, of carbon accounting: There are several ways to measure emissions, each targeting a different node in the supply chain.” (05/06/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/accounting-burden-in-carbon-tax-cap-and-trade-cbam
- No, AI Won’t Make Money Obsolete
Source: The Daily Economy
by Peter C Earle“The notion that artificial intelligence at full bloom might eliminate the need for money reflects a deep confusion about what money is and does. Money is not merely a barter-avoiding convenience layered onto an otherwise frictionless world. It is a solution to fundamental problems of exchange, profound difficulties in coordination, and comparison of alternatives under scarcity. Even in a hypothetical future defined by extraordinary productivity gains and broadly collapsing prices, those underlying problems do not disappear. Instead they change form, and for as long as scarcity, tradeoffs, and uncertainty persist in any domain, so too will the need for money.” (05/06/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/no-ai-wont-make-money-obsolete/
- Will John Fetterman Go Full Benedict Arnold?
Source: The American Prospect
by Ryan Cooper“Is Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) going to switch parties? That’s the scuttlebutt in Washington, D.C., according to Politico. He has been one of Trump’s loudest supporters among congressional Democrats, and with the GOP looking down the barrel of a catastrophic loss in the upcoming midterms, they are hoping to buy themselves a Senate seat—literally. It seems Sens. Dave McCormick (R-PA) and Katie Britt (R-AL) have been assiduously working on Fetterman. Donald Trump as usual cut to the chase and offered a huge sack of cash by way of a message delivered through Fox News contributor Sean Hannity: ‘Your job is to tell him,’ as Hannity recalled the conversation, ‘‘He’s gonna run as a Republican, he’s gonna have our full support, more money than he ever dreamed of, and he’s gonna win big.’'” (05/06/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/05/06/will-john-fetterman-go-full-benedict-arnold/
- Trump’s War on Iran Is Destroying America
Source: Antiwar.com
by John J. Duncan, Jr.“I think Trump realizes that both the U.S. economy and the world economy will be greatly damaged and possibly go in to a major recession if the war is not ended very soon. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said it ‘will be worse than people think.’ The President seems to be trying very hard to reach an agreement, but he knows Israel wants to go in the other direction and escalate the war even further. And he knows the Israel Lobby has almost total control of the Congress and will go along with Netanyahu no matter what.” (05/06/26)
- Bright Horizons for AI
Source: Law & Liberty
by Kevin Frazier“The AI you have today is the worst you’ll ever use.” (05/06/26)
- Is Libertarianism Incoherent?
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by David Gordon & Roger E. Bissell“Libertarianism has no ‘fixed philosophical essence,’ [Matt] Zwolinski says, or you wouldn’t have seen the drastic swings in how the term was applied between Déjacque’s anarcho-communism of the 1850s and Leonard Read’s free markets and limited government of the 1950s, let alone the present-day. There simply has never been a permanent, stable paradigm of liberty. Yes, an apparent consensus was arrived at in the 1970s in the ‘rights-based free-market’ views of Robert Nozick, Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard — which Zwolinski also tellingly labels as rationalist and absolutist. (Code-word alert: he means unempirical and dogmatic, which are bad things, unlike the empirical and flexible approach he favors.) But this was more of a historical accident, or perhaps a breathing spell, before society in general and libertarian theory in particular began a steady unraveling and loss of cohesion.” (05/05/26)
- Trump’s drug control strategy sets path to end drug crisis for good
Source: Fox News
by Sara Carter“During President Trump’s first year in office, the United States reduced drug overdose deaths by over 13,000, compared to the previous 12 months. That is more than a statistic: it is thousands of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends and neighbors who are alive today because of the decisive actions taken under his leadership. Now, drug overdose deaths are lower than at any point under the Biden administration and nearly 40,000 lower than the previous Administration’s peak of almost 108,000. This result is historic, but it is not enough. We must continue fighting every day to save lives from the chemical war being waged on the American people by cartel terrorists. This week, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) will continue our work to save lives with the release of President Trump’s 2026 National Drug Control Strategy.” [editor’s note: I assume this was ghost-written, as no one with the brains to write it has the lack of brains to believe it – TLK] (05/06/26)
- Addressing US Government Fraud Issues
Source: Independent Institute
by Craig Eyermann“No matter how you slice it, the U.S. government has a major fraud problem. The federal government’s watchdog agency, the General Accounting Office (GAO), estimates that about half a trillion dollars will be lost to fraud this year. Let’s put that number a little differently. In February 2026, just three months ago, the Congressional Budget Office projected the U.S. government would spend a net total of $7.448 trillion this year. Half a trillion dollars is about 1 out of every 15 dollars the federal government will spend in 2026. The GAO says Washington, D.C.’s politicians and bureaucrats might as well just flush that money down a bottomless sewer. Why not? If they did, they would have just as much to show for it.” (05/05/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/05/05/steps-solve-massive-problems-fraud/
- The Political Orphanage, 05/06/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“The Non-Profit Industrial Complex.” (05/06/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/the-non-profit-industrial-complex
- Art, AI, Consciousness And Awakening
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“Caitlin and Tim discuss art, AI, consciousness, propaganda, spiritual awakening and more while Caitlin paints a portrait of Marco ‘the Gorey Gusano’ Rubio.” (05/06/26)
- Rising, 05/06/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker blaming President Trump for the rise in political violence and antisemitism.” (05/06/26)
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 05/06/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Ballroom Saga Takes Brutal Turn for GOP as Midterm Panic Worsens.” (05/06/26)
- Kinsella on Liberty, episode 489
Source: StephanKinsella.com
“The Problem with Intellectual Property.” (05/06/26)
https://stephankinsella.com/as_paf_podcast/kol489-the-problem-with-intellectual-property-audio/
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 443
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Vin Armani on new federal policies for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.” (05/06/26)
- Politics Politics Politics, 05/06/26
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Graham Platner’s Reddit Problems Return! AI, Iran, and the Economy (with J.D. Durkin).” (05/06/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/graham-platners-reddit-problems-return
- SolutionsWatch, 05/06/26
Source: The Corbett Report
“How to Deal With Authorities.” (05/06/26)
- Reveal, 05/06/26
Source: Mother Jones
“The Secrets Behind ‘The Talented Mr. Epstein.'” (05/06/26)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/05/jeffrey-epstein-maria-annie-farmer-vicky-ward/
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 05/05/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Trump Says ‘Project Freedom’ Is Now Paused, US Bombs Somalia for 62nd Time This Year, and More.” (05/05/26)